Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-12-Speech-3-040"

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"Mr President, I should like, first of all, to thank Commissioner Patten for the high quality of his speech, and also those Members who have argued unambiguously in favour of disarming Iraq by means of inspections and peaceful avenues. Barbarity cannot be combated with barbarity, and war, whether we like it or not, is a form of barbarity. It is also an old-fashioned way of settling conflicts. Over a year ago, the President of the United States described as rogue states a certain number of countries suspected of having at their disposal, for the purposes of conquest, weapons of mass destruction which threatened world peace. Eliminating weapons of mass destruction is certainly a desirable objective that we should all try to achieve in the context of the United Nations and, in particular, in the context of the non-proliferation treaty. Yet how can we explain to the people of the countries described as rogue states that weapons of mass destruction are bad when they belong to those countries but that they are good when they belong to so-called ‘virtuous’ states? These virtuous states lie, in particular, in Europe, but there is also the United States, whose army is ready to use such weapons of mass destruction, in other words tactical nuclear weapons, in the war that they want to launch in Iraq. This is a complete contradiction and, in terms of international law, it is a further black mark against the US Government. If I wanted to sustain Mr Bush’s metaphor, I would say that the US State is a super-rogue. However, I shall not do so, because that would be to insult the American people, and I do not want us to end up insulting one another. Last week, in fact, we had an opportunity to meet US elected representatives who are openly opposed to the use of force. They are demonstrating against the war alongside their fellow citizens and they constitute, in my opinion, the great majority of public opinion."@en1

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